We’re here folks. The end of the line. The last episode. The Final Fantasy, for real this time. This essay is the thrilling conclusion of our Spotlight Game series, where for a year we’ve examined the vices and virtues of videogames by Toronto indie developers. As a Hand Eye member, you’ve been getting a free game every month, in exchange for glossing through my insufferable rambling. If you’ve missed out on the series, never fear: we will possibly start up a new thing to replace the Spotlight series (a Let’s Play? A podcast? A seance?). If you have an opinion on what we should do, let us know!

In the meantime, check out this month’s game: The Yawhg, a choose-your-own-adventure with a twist, made by hometown hero Damian Sommer and London legend Emily Carroll, with sound by Ryan Roth and Halina Heron. We sent the Yawhg for free to our Hand Eye members. Not a Hand Eye member? To join, head here!

 

The Yawhg and the Art of Ending

The Yawhg begins with calamity, said in brief.

“The Yawhg will be here in six weeks… and no one expects it. Not one of us. We just keep on living our lives, week by week, unaware…”

But I am aware, and I play the rest of the game dreading/anticipating (dreadticipating?) some unknown catastrophic villain.

Part of this is because of Yawhg’s artist Emily Carroll. I remember coming across her signature fairy tale savagery within His Face All Red a couple years back, a comic lush with scarlet terror and terrifying implications. The other part is because Carroll’s collaborator is Damian Sommer, a Hand Eye member whose games are like Charlie from It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, jumping out of a moving van: completely unexpected, but awesome. Of the games by Sommer I have played, I’ve always dived into them with clear expectations that end up being subverted by clever mechanics that made me rethink my approach to game logic. The duo had made the game for Comics vs. Games in 2012, and after tweaks and updates, released it on Steam.

Carroll and Sommer brought the best out of each other in the Yawhg, a randomly generated short story with Ye Olde Magical Village aesthetics and sensibilities, contrasted by spurts of mystical weirdness. Right along the usual townspeople and royalty shenanigans are the strange beasts in forests and badly timed demon summonings.

Each character gets one turn, which causes a week to pass by. During their turn, a character can visit one place, which is told through modular storytelling. This repeats, until the Yawhg arrives. And then the consequences of how you spent your time are laid bare, determining the fate of your home.  

The characters are blank templates, who don’t take on any attributes with their identities. In spite of this, I don’t know of a single player who hadn’t assigned some sort of internal narrative or weird backstory to their character. It’s because Carroll’s artwork is adept at using colour and style to make people that embody histories on their faces and skin. The vignettes, that work as rotating backdrops for characters doing essentially the same things in them, become uniquely transformed depending on the character, which can perhaps change how they’re played. I know that as soon as I realized I could make the bearded male-presenting badass the belle of the ball, I was going to be partying with the bourgeois every damn week.

It was refreshing how physicalities didn’t affect gameplay. If I wanted to dance with strange women, give a king fertility advice, or awkwardly encounter my ex, my gender presentation didn’t seem to affect encounters that would have been taken into account in traditional game contexts. So long as I had a high enough stat I could pretty much do anything.

When it comes to mechanics, the Yawhg’s system works okay for the single player looking to grind out as many outcomes as possible, but really shines with multiplayer. This is one of those games that are fun to watch from the sidelines. (One time I watched a father and son play and witnessed the son spend most of his weeks pickpocketing, to his dad’s horror.) Sometimes there’s unsaid competition to beat your fellow Yawhg player, even though your characters never run into each other while fighting or getting wasted at the bar. Plus, it’s exciting to watch a character’s story unfold, knowing your buddy’s awful choices determine what kind of person they’ll be.

As you bustle from tavern to tower, triggering events with every step, there’s a constant apocalyptic promise in the air. This is probably because interspersed throughout the weeks are cryptic notes of caution, that you can’t help but read in a grizzled-fisherman-sitting-at-the-end-of-the-bar voice.

“They say the last time it came, the YAWHG devoured houses whole,” reads one warning.

We’re never given a clear indication of what exactly the Yawhgcould be. A natural disaster, a plague, an evil entity? Maybe none of them, maybe all of them. In the end, it doesn’t even matter. Yawhg’s coming, Yawhg’s here, Yawhg’s over.

When the Big Bad isn’t meant to be overcome, an ending is important. The Yawhg has over fifty endings, with varying levels of probability. For many games, multiple endings are their downfall. Players strive for a “true” final destination, going so far as to follow walkthrough guides and change their allegiances to make choices they weren’t naturally drawn to. While the experience has its perks, it can sometimes feel inauthentic, like the game is guiding you with one of those condescending toddler leashes through the Eaton Centre.

Thanks to the fluidity of unseen random variables, none of the Yawhg’s endings feel like that. Since you can’t really calculate outcomes off the cuff, your actions are more like wild science guesstimates, where you veer towards certain places with a weak hypothesis or a strong hunch. The amount of endings add that beloved “replay value” factor too, making this game less about following concrete routes and more of a stumble through the forest.

Not only is the range of endings impressive, the depth of them is pretty sweet. They delve deeper than a simple happy or sad abrupt stop for an individual. Instead, post-Yawhg endings get their own conclusions too, which aren’t necessarily reflective of the fate that befell your home earlier.

Taking into account the richness of events and endings, it’s practically ensured that runs always feel satisfying. After the Yawhg, your home could flourish, but you might end up jumping into a lake and turning into a star. Or your home could lie in shambles, but you’re too busy fighting crime to really care. Whatever happens before and post-Yawhg, you can’t really complain because something cool probably occurred a couple times in the brief span of time you’ve played. Say what you will about the life you led in the Yawhg, your accomplishments or (liver) failures: it’s undeniable that, at the very least, it was a full life.

And there ya have it! Thanks for tuning into our Spotlight series. The Yawhg is available on Steam, as well as through its official website. Check out some official gameplay, feat Toronto game community folks screaming about lutes.